Flyerwife, thanks for your review. When I was on the August 20 sailing, we ate with a couple who were staying on for the August 27 sailing, and they were the ones who said that Guest Services had notified them that the August 27 itinerary had been changed. Glad to hear it wasn't.

Our August 20 sailing had a large number of Europeans. And as is their norm, many of them were smoking in areas that were non-smoking. And as I've noticed on my business trips to Europe, they don't line up for anything in an organized manner. My brother-in-law and I had to gently "remind" people several times where the end of the line was. And without any exaggeration, they were always from Europe.

I loved the retro TV station! I can't remember the last time I watched the Little Rascals.

And how do you "know" any more than the rest of us? Are you a structural engineer, have experience in the shipbuilding industry, or what?

I am a historian by education and do statistics for my living. Do you need to know more?

Despite the tone, I think it's a legitimate question. I was hoping some of the comments were coming from engineers or navy/military or sailors. I'd be interested to know what these people think about Freedom. (Mechanical engineer myself but do not work on ships).

I guess your answer to the original question asked of you is: No.

How do know they are not?

Personnaly as far as I can see pretty everyone here would rather not know.
Keep sailing with your lucky rabbit foot and hope to hell its not your ship when the inevitable IMHO happens.

mike

What? I'm not assuming there are no engineers and so on. I'm hoping they participate here and identify themselves.

FYI-- Discover Channel had a show on rogue waves recently. It probably gets repeated.

Well I suppose I participate here about as much as I want and although technically I am not a marine engineer ( chemical engineer it is ).
I did do stint as engineering officer at sea.... not the same thing.
Since then for the last 28 years I have been based ashore as an independent marine surveyor. Its not surprising that one does get to know a quite lot about ships, their construction and operation especially when I get to work on/with upwards of 300 ships a year.

I have from time to time expressed my serious concern about the mega cruise-liners due to my personal observations and discussions with friends one in particular who probably the major Class surveyor in the SE USA and the Caribbean and has expressed similar sentiments to mine.
Class surveyors who are engaged by the major Classification Societies such as Lloyds or the American Bureau of Shipping etc to do periodic inspections of the entire vessel operating systems, structure faults, metal fatigue etc etc and the vessel is required to keep in class so as to be " Classified" and be able to carry liability insurance.

Not going go over that again, besides this thread is about a specific vessel
and I might ( or might not ) have thrown a wet blanket over members enthusiasm toward the ship.

mike

I have already been on the freedom and agree that the internet is slow. It has been that way since the ship first debuted.

What I do not think is crazy is the fee for Johnny Rockets. If anyone has ever tried to eat there during days at sea the place is packed and almost always has a wait. The reason this 3.95 price tag has been enforced is to try and minimize wait times.
A tip for crown and anchor members is that you receive a booklet in your stateroom which has a coupon for a free JR meal. Are there 2 c & a members in your party? You both will receive one.

I promised a report from the Freedom Of The Seas and here it is, five days into the cruise.

First of all, I�d rate this cruise an 8.5-9.0 overall. And I�ve been on nearly a dozen cruises with Holland-America, Norwegian and others although this is our first RCCL cruise.
This has been our most enjoyable cruise thus far but I�ll have to admit we �lucked out� a bit. And I�ll explain that later.

Cruise Negatives:

1. The ship has 4,100 pax this week. And there haven�t been a lot of lines or waiting but when everybody does try to do something at the same time, i.e., get off the ship, eat breakfast, etc., it can be a real zoo.

2. The high-speed wireless is neither high speed nor is it cheap. I didn�t really expect cheap but I was hoping it was faster than dial-up. Best price you can get is $.33/minute but the upside is you can log-on from your laptop anywhere on the ship.

3. They do nickle and dime you a lot on this ship with upcharges for nearly everything outside of the scheduled meals. Again, not surprising but it gets kind of old after a few days.

4. I can�t blame RCCL for this but it is incredibly hot and steamy down here. Not sure where I thought we were headed but I don�t remember it being this uncomfortable from past Caribbean cruises.
Maybe I�ve lived too long in humidity-free Southern CA.

Those are really the only negatives thus far and it�s not too long of a list.

Cruise Positives:


1. Every single RCCL person has been incredibly friendly and helpful. The first day we boarded the ship, our cabin attendant spent 20 minutes showing us all over the room and explaining how everything worked. And she�s been delightful ever since, leaving little surprises in our room every night like chocolate-dipped fruit, cheese/fruit trays, towel �animals� she designs, etc. We�ve got a towel monkey hanging from our ceiling, a pair of towel swans on the back of our couch and a towel duck in one of our chairs. We�ve run into this from other cruise lines on rare occasion but this lady is determined to fill our room like a zoo.
Our dining room waiter is very, very friendly and efficient and everybody from the bus boys to the head waiter has bent over backwards for us.

2. The food has been better on this ship than on any other ship we�ve sailed. We�ve yet to move up the feeding chain to Seabourn, Crystal or SilverSeas but with the cruise lines we�ve sailed, the food at all the venues here has been superior. And we have some great table mates. We�re sharing a table for eight with couples from Finland, Ireland and England and we�ve all become instant friends.

3. We�ve had dinner at both of the specialty restaurants thus far and both were primo. Chops is the steakhouse and Portofino is their Italian upscale restaurant and both were as good as anything I�ve had landside. And I�ve had 30+ years of fine-dining experience worldwide.

4. We booked a mid-scale suite on the ship as we simply wanted more room to spread out. But we didn�t realize the bennies it came with. We are able to use the private concierge lounge 24/7 and when I say private, I mean it. We�ve been in there a couple times a day and we�ve yet to see more than 3 or 4 people in the lounge at any given time. After 5 PM, cocktails are served free in the lounge and they also serve an excellent variety of hot and cold hors d�oeuvres. Plus we�ve gotten to know the concierge, Francois, like family. He�s been very helpful and has answered every question we have had about the ship.

5. The ship is striking in it�s beauty and it dwarfs anything and everything around it. The shopping promenade is laid out like a boulevard and is reminiscent of an upscale shopping mall. The main dining room is three stories tall and is exquisitely decorated. And as the ship is only 6 months old, everything is crisp and new.

6. Probably the highlight of the cruise thus far was in invitation to dine at the Captain�s Table on the first formal night. AFAIK the captain only dines at our seating once a week and we were very happy to be included. We met the captain at a bar for cocktails prior to dinner and then moved to dinner as a group. Wine flowed freely at dinner and we were served by both head waiters who don�t normally serve meals since they run the dining rooms.
We had a group picture taken of our table from a balcony and the picture was framed and in our room after dinner. Plus we got an invitation to tour the bridge Saturday afternoon and this is a very tough invitation to get post 9/11.

All in all, we�ve been very, very pleased with this cruise and are already planning our next RCCL cruise.

When we get back I�ll post again on this ship if there is anything noteworthy that occurs over the next few days.

Cholula, thanks for that review of FOS. I agree totally with the internet. Definitely not "high speed."

I was surprised to hear that you thought the food was the best you've had on a cruise. I've only sailed RCCL and I thought the food was fine, but I've heard and read from others who've sailed other lines that the RCCL food was subpar. So that was nice to hear, as I will probabaly be sailing RCCL again.

Nice that you had dinner with the Captain and had your picture taken and in your room so fast. Quite impressive.

How was the tour of the bridge?


Do let us know how disembarment goes on Sunday morning. Ours was very smooth and quick, but I have heard some horror stories about going through customs.

Did you dock or tender at Cozumel?

Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

Tony

Hey Tony. The bridge tour is tomorrow so I�ll report back later.
We tendered at Cozumel but we could have docked. The ship needed painting on what would have been our dock side so they decided to tender.
We�re taking advantage of checking our bags for our DL flight at the dock. We get our boarding passes for the flights in our cabin Saturday night. This �new� service is available for those flying DL, UA or AA on flights after noon on the day of disembarkation.
Fee is $10 pp and is a bargain IMO.
On the food question, a lot depends on what you order. I�ve thoroughly enjoyed my choices as I order what I think they can best handle while serving 4K pax. Items like steak, prime rib, etc. don�t hold well so I usually avoid them except in the upcharge restaurants.
We�ve got a couple dinners left so I�ll update my impressions of the food when we complete the cruise.

I don't understand the criticisms of internet speed. Are they using a new service on Freedom? I figured it would be the same as satellite service they have on Navigator (and others in that class)? It was slow, but that's par for the course.

rrgg, I don't know what they're using on Freedom, but I can vouch for how slow it was. However, the closer we got to Miami on our return the better the speed became. I do not know why that was the case, and I would hesitate to venture a guess as I am "technologically challenged."

And when I say slow HSIA on Freedom, I mean SLOW! It felt like the old days when I used dial-up. Yes, that slow.

It�s been taking a minute or more to send a 4 Kb e-mail when it should only take a couple seconds IMO. E-mail downloads are fairly quick but the uploads are agonizingly slow.